Today, in order to avoid adult diseases, and wishing healthy life, there are increasing occasions of enjoying sports such as golf, fitness exercises, athletics, and tennis, but foods sufficiently considering the health during and after exercise have been hardly developed yet.
That is, hitherto, as the beverages and foods for nutritional supplement at the time of exercise or fatigue, drinks for supplementing water, electrolytes and carbohydrates, and total nutrients or beverages blending all nutritional elements in good balance have been known and sold on market, but they do not sufficiently cope with the physical changes in special state such as physical exhaustion and fatigue due to exercise, and it has been demanded to develop alimentary foods capable of bringing about excellent feeding effects, sufficiently coping with such physical changes.
Man reserves carbohydrates in the liver and muscles as glycogen, and the reserve amount is required, as heat, about 1000 to 2000 kcal/body, which is not enough for long-term exercise or exercise in hunger. In such exercise, instead of carbohydrates, mainly lipid is consumed as energy source, but at this time when carbohydrates such as glucose are taken, the lipid metabolism is blocked, and the carbohydrates reserved as glycogen are consumed, thereby accelerating the drought of glycogen. When glycogen is used up, exercise cannot be maintained.
On the other hand, in tough energy-consuming sports such as marathon and boxing, it is required to keep the stamina for a long term and recover the lowered stamina quickly, and keeping and recovering of stamina are correlated with the amount of glycogen reserved in the body [Bergstram, J. et al. Acta Physiol. Scand., 71, 140 (1967)].
In such exercise, it is desired to reserve sufficient carbohydrates in a form of glycogen as far as possible, but with the conventional nutrient drinks or foods, no matter how much is taken, only the reserved glycogen as carbohydrates is consumed quickly by priority, and enough feeding and stamina recovery effects are not expected.
In addition, as the life becomes affluent, recently, the people's interest about health is increasing, and the concern about obesity is particularly high. To fight obesity, suppression of total calorie uptake, or so-called diet therapy is known, but this method is not considered very favorable nowadays, and it is considered preferable to lose weight by increasing calorie consumption by moderate sports. For example, aerobic exercises are very popular among young people. By taking drinks with high contents of carbohydrates during or after such sports, the once promoted carbohydrate metabolism is suppressed, and finally the effect of losing weight is hardly obtained.
Furthermore, when exercising outdoors, people are often exposed to ultraviolet rays, and radicals are produced in the body, or the respiration activity is promoted to form high oxygen concentrations in some parts of the body, and this high oxygen concentration produces active oxygen, and radicals may be formed in the body. In such circumstances, unless the radical chain reaction is stopped in the body, fatigue substances are accumulated, which may lead to physical exhaustion, lowering of performance, and further catabolism of bodily protein, morbid state, or even carcinogenesis in worst case.
It is hence a primary object of the invention to present a novel nutrient composition particularly suited for feeding during exercise.
It is other object of the invention to present a nutrient composition capable of suppressing consumption of glycogen in the body, promoting metabolism of carbohydrates, keeping stamina during exercise, and recovering from fatigue quickly after exercise.
It is a further object of the invention to present a nutrient composition capable of preventing formation of radicals in the body to avoid falling in morbid state.